That Which Dies, Floats to the Stars
by The Machinist has Fallen
Summary: Have you ever wondered just what happens, when a crew who has fought through the galaxy, defeated untold obstacles and made incredible feats of friendship, make the last stand, and fail? This is the story of The Damned Ones and her crew as they must now make a new mission to become the rebels and fight their enemies while the captain must deal with his cowardice and failure.
1. Chapter 1

That Which Dies, Floats to the Stars

By The Machinist has Fallen

Chapter 1: It all Went so Wrong

I was taught a lot of things when I was in the Academy. They taught me how to basically operate any part of a ship, with only the most basic of abilities of course. Weapons, shields, engines, piloting, I was good at piloting. Along the way, I even made some friends, a crazy gunner named Kevin, and a genius with tech and shields named Patrick. We formed a band of misfits together, but we proved ourselves to be a great crew. The Academy taught me a lot of things, but when it came to defeat, I was something of a...hothead.

Even in the simulators I hated losing. When the going got tough, and I found myself lacking, there was a lot of collateral damage. They were about to brand me unstable, and kick me out entirely, but that's when my friends showed up. They personally vouched, on their honor and pride as servicemen, that I would control myself. When someone, even two people, stick their necks out for you, then you damn well better learn to control yourself, or you might as well stop calling yourself a man. It was difficult to say the least, and I almost lost it a time or two, but I couldn't, I wouldn't allow myself to destroy the lives of my friends. So I worked hard, I personally went into a simulator and didn't stop until my temper was under control. After that, they said I was a new man, even offered an accommodation for improving so well.

That was by far the biggest party my friends and I hosted in a long time, of course the rebels had different plans. When they first attacked us, it wasn't just a crippling wound, it was like an amputation. We didn't have time to react, and we didn't have the resources to fight such a massive war. The rebels had the upper hand, and they damn well knew it. Little did those bastards know, we Federation troops had a nice big plan for them. My crew and I were tasked with a special mission, to bring vital information to our forces on the other end of the galaxy. We weren't going to let these guys finish us, and we weren't going to let them beat us.

Not a lot of people can admit or even say it, but traveling across the galaxy is a challenge I wouldn't ask of any man. We went through a lot, and it was a great show of our skill. Our ship was apply named The Damned Ones, and well, we did quite a few things to earn that on our way through the galaxy to earn that name, but I never thought our end would very much prove our name to the letter.

When we arrived, our ship had a crew transporter, a cloaking device, pegasus missile launcher, burst laser and a nice little hull laser we lifted off a derelict rebel ship. Our shields weren't that great, but they could take a couple hits before failing. Our sensors were strong enough to see into their ship, we had blast doors, and a nice little auto pilot that made life a bit simpler for us all. Once we got to the other side of the galaxy, we gave them the information, the flagship. It was a monster, a colossal weapon capable of destroying countless amounts of ships, and we had to destroy it before it got to our main forces.

If your reading this, then that means you must be wondering why I just skipped all the juicy bits, all of the nice little stories about visiting all the different planets and people. I wish I could have told you all of that, cause that would have been a nice story, but you need to know what happened at that end of the galaxy, at that damned...God forsaken part of the galaxy. Tales of heroism or hijinks mean nothing when at the very end of it all, you just make a floating graveyard.

We tried everything we could to stop them, we hit them with everything we could muster. I saw five rebel ships go down during that time, but when we met up with the flagship, it all just went to hell. Their weapons were far greater than we thought, our cloaking device only gave us so much time, and they made sure we couldn't transport anyone up there with their damned EMP weapons. We kept getting hit...there was so much fire...I had to do something, I refused to just let my friends die, not after we had gone through so much.

I fled from that battle, I jumped to the nearest beacon, then I sealed the cockpit and kept jumping. Kevin was pounding on the door, calling me a coward. Patrick was doing everything he could to override the systems and make us get back to the fight, but it was already over. When we got back, it was...horrifying. Helplessly I watched as we floated through, seeing all of the once great broken ships as they drifted by. After that, people just sort of...left the ship. We had two Engis, a Rockman, and a Zoltan besides us three. After they had all left, we were all that remained.

I was forced into one of the ship's compartments, bound and awaiting what was likely to be my execution. Death is all that a traitor like me deserved, I was ready to accept it, only if it meant I could have changed what I had done. This was one of the most basic Federation ships you could get, and it was probably one of the last that ever existed. When the door opened up, I closed my eyes, not wanting to see their faces before they killed me. Then I heard something that was truly incredible.

"Get up. There's still a fight to be had." Patrick said, and he unbound me. They had forgiven me, and I felt as though a weight was now on our shoulders that was much greater than any mission we were given by the Academy. To this day I don't know why they let me live, but I knew what our new mission now was. We were going to take down the rebels, or the People's Commonwealth as they so called themselves, and avenge every man woman and child they had killed...and I had abandoned.

First off we had to hide ourselves. It was easy enough, spray on a bit of purple paint and we were officially bandits. It wouldn't be an easy life, but it was one we had to endure. Pirates were usually killed on sight, though we weren't sure what the People's Commonwealth thought of pirates. Kevin told us about a few planets pirates could go where they wouldn't have to worry about the authorities, we hoped that was a good thing. The next thing we did was jettison everything we had that made us part of the Federation. If it was ever discovered, then we'd all be dead.

Looking out at the stars, I wondered sometimes, just what exactly we were doing. We didn't have much in terms of a plan, we didn't even have much in terms of hope, but we had to keep going, I had to keep going. Looking out at the stars, I would have thought I'd feel anger for failing, I thought I'd be the angriest I ever felt, but the tears that started to stream down my cheek said otherwise.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Preparations of War

The planet of Hykon, scum of the galaxy, and perfect for some newly formed pirates like us. Going into the planet, my gunner Kevin took us to a nice little saloon, which was just a nice way of saying crime ridden space station orbiting the planet. After going in, we found ourselves in some pretty unfamiliar territory.

I myself had never been anywhere near a planet like this. The only pirates I had ever seen, I blasted them out of the sky. With the current turmoil that's been going on with the People's Commonwealth, piracy has started to get more lucrative. While this has been going on, we've been trying to figure out how to put as much damage as we can to the People's Commonwealth.

"We should prey on their cargo ships." Patrick suggested, sipping a drink as we sat at a table. The Academy always got on his case for his long hair, but he never bothered to cut it. "An organism with no food starts to wither and die."

"No no no." Kevin retorted, downing another shot of his drink. There wasn't a living thing around that could out drink him. "We find their shipyards, the stuff they use to make the weapons and stuff, then we make them go boom. They can't fight us when they don't have weapons." He said with his thick, Old Russian accent.

I thought about it for a moment, then said "maybe we should just..." I frowned as I noticed the clear uncomfortableness Patrick and Kevin signaled. They still didn't trust me, and I honestly couldn't blame them for it. I only shook my head and sighed somewhat. "Preying on cargo ships is too risky. They may just have more protection than we can handle, same thing goes with the shipyards. They could have even more protection than we could see at first, until it's too late." I knew they didn't like it when me of all people were poking holes in their plans, but they nodded in agreement.

"Then what do we do?" Kevin asked, starting to look down at his drink.

"We can...go and find some help. I hear that there's some people over in a civilian sector, something about some kind of protest going on. Maybe if we went to check it out, we could get some support." Patrick suggested, and we all nodded. It wasn't a big step forward, but this is how a real rebellion works, no big missions, just taking it all step by step.

After going into the civilian sector, we started searching the different beacons. The first beacon we went to, we found that it wasn't just a protest, it was a full on open revolt against those damned murderers in the People's Commonwealth.

The civilians seemed to be using some second class ships to fight, and it wasn't doing them any good. We saw one of them get blasted, and we sprang into action. Kevin went to his post at the weapons, and Patrick went to the shields. Going into the pilot's chair, I started to feel a sense of nausea overtake me. Trying to keep it together, I put us in a place to start firing at them.

Kevin was a genius at his targeting. He was able to get each weapon in just the right position to take out the enemy. Our first priority was the elite fighter they had, and Kevin used one of the pegasus missiles to take out their weapons for just a while. After that, the burst laser was able to bring down their shields just long enough for a hull beam to take out their life support systems. We knew they were scrambling, and the surprise alone must have caused some damage, this is when I saw Kevin and Patrick head over to the crew teleport.

"Don't you think about!" I screamed on the intercom. "Even if you kill their crew the rest of the ships can just open fire and take us out before you can get back. Go back to your stations and finish off that ship!" You could take a lot more from a ship that wasn't completely destroyed, but I wasn't going to risk our lives for such an avaricious notion.

Reluctantly they went back to their stations, and we were able to take out the ship with another launch of our weapons. As it broke up, I took a few deep breaths. When the rest of the ships took notice of us, I started going into evasive maneuvers. As they fired, I was able to miss a few of their shots, but what was most important was the missiles. While only one of the ships had them, all it took was one missile to put us dead in the water.

I realized that they didn't even have laser weapons. All of their weapons were beam type, then I heard something from Kevin that made me shiver.

"Captain! I recognize those beams, their bio beams!" Those bastards...they were using bio beams to just exterminate those people, and they didn't even have any shields. Gritting my teeth, I held tightly to the controls and responded. "You have my permission to use the crew teleporter, make those murderers pay. I'll give you support from my end."

Weapons weren't really my thing, but it was possible for me to use them from my position at the cockpit. As I multi tasked, Kevin and Patrick used the teleporter to get into the next ship. Inside were only humans, but they were no match against those two. Doing the best I could, I opened fire on the other ship beside them. Trying to keep them busy and stop them from doing anymore damage.

Carefully I had to keep my eye on Patrick and Kevin, making sure that they didn't get too injured where they would be killed. If they were to get hurt, then I would use the teleporter to get them out as quickly as possible. I got a transmission from the civilian ships, and I started to get very worried.

"What the hell is a pirate doing here?!" That and a lot of similar transmissions started to occur, screaming at me from all sides. Calmly I tried to explain to them, but in that time, a missile hit the ship. I was rocked hard, and almost knocked my head against the wall. Looking at the systems, everything seemed all right, so nothing important was hit. Getting frustrated was a bad thing for a pilot, I had to keep my head together or people were gonna die.

After shutting off the comm system, I continued firing on the other ship. Looking over at Kevin and Patrick, I saw with a bit of pride they cleared out the ship and were requesting transport back. After hitting a couple buttons, I teleported them back to the ship, where they went to the med bay for some quick healing. Knowing they were okay made me a bit more confident, so I fired off another burst from the laser, and watched as the last ship was destroyed.

Taking a deep breath, I opened up communications with the civilians. "You have nothing to worry about. We are here to help you." They were silent, and from what I saw, they weren't trying to target us with their weapons. Then a voice came in, one that sounded to be of an old man, one that you would relate to that strange old relative that wasn't quite right.

"Well well well. I knew I recognized that ship. You wouldn't think The Damned Ones would become pirates, but cowardice is to be expected when you go up against the might of the great flagship."

I was stunned, frozen in my seat. The rest of my crew was shocked as well, and weren't sure what to really do. Slowly, I responded. "Who are you?"

"Who am I?" The man said, and something of a chuckle could be heard. "I'm the man who designed the great flagship."


End file.
